Page 138 - Special Topic Session (STS) - Volume 4

STS571 Sarpono et al.

Combining mobile phone data and survey data
for the best result: Experience from Indonesia
Sarpono, Titi Kanti Lestari
BPS-Statistics Indonesia

Abstract
Data collection is complicated in Indonesia due to vast geographic distances
and difficulty of travel. So is it that the inbound tourism survey for measuring
tourism is under coverage. Improving the accuracy of inbound tourism
statistics with mobile positioning data. Mobile positioning data (MPD) is
considered as one of the most promising big data for measuring the mobility
of people, including mobility of tourists based. It holds more information, is
much faster and more reliable. However, as a new data source, there also
challenges and limitation of big data (including mobile positioning data) that
have to be taken into account in order to become a valuable and quality
statistics. In MPD there is a lack of qualitative data on tourism motivation and
the sample does not include non-roamers. One way to overcome the
limitations of big data is by combining it with small data obtained from a
survey. This paper shows that combining big and small data will provide
optimal results. We used mobile positioning data about roaming activities of
cross-border tourists in Indonesia at border areas and mobile usage survey
conducted at the borders in order to know the motivations for cross-border
movements (both roamers and non-roamers). Then, we come up with the
formula that combines big and small data to obtain the best result for tourism
statistics.

Keywords
Big Data, tourism statistics, remote area

1. Introduction
Indonesia has a border land with Malaysia, Timor Leste, and Papua New
Guinea along 3092.8 km. While, the sea area borders with 10 countries, namely
India, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam Philippines, Australia,Timor
Leste, Palau, and Papua New Guinea. This sea border covers 92 leading small
island, starting from Miangas Island in the north to Dana Island in the south.
During this time foreign tourists were calculated based on the Immigration
Office based on the passport swipe, which recorded the traffic of all people
entering Indonesian territory. Since the vast condition of the Indonesian
territory with diverse border areas (sea and land) and the limitations of the
Immigration Office, not all foreign tourists entering Indonesian territory are
recorded regularly and on time. There are still many border regions of

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